Bitcoin fell more than 4% to about $85,000, with major digital assets falling along with stocks, tech stocks and gold as a broad risk-off movement swept global markets.
U.S. stocks opened sharply lower due to the sharp drop in Microsoft shares, with the S&P 500 dropping more than 1% and the Nasdaq dropping more than 1.8%.
Microsoft fell about 11% after the earnings release, dragging down the entire technology sector. Tesla fell about 2%, Google fell about 2.5% and Nvidia fell about 1.5%.
The decline extended beyond stocks. Gold, which hit a record high of $5,500 on Wednesday, reversed sharply and fell nearly 5% to around $5,100 as investors reduced exposure across the asset class.
The market turmoil caused a large-scale liquidation of cryptocurrencies. More than $360 million in positions were liquidated in the past hour, overwhelmingly led by long positions, according to data from Coinglass.
Of this amount, approximately $350 million was due to long liquidations and approximately $10 million was due to short liquidations. Total liquidations in the past 24 hours reached $700 million.
Bitcoin’s decline was reflected across major tokens. Ether fell about 6% to nearly $2,800, Solana fell about 5% to about $118, and XRP fell about 5% to nearly $1.80.
